


Of all the stars, the fairest

by jiemba



Series: Sanvers Week 2017 [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Nerd Girlfriends, Sanvers - Freeform, Sanvers Week, date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 20:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11298153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiemba/pseuds/jiemba
Summary: Alex plans a date for the first time, treating Maggie to a night out at the science museum.





	Of all the stars, the fairest

**Author's Note:**

> Sanvers week day 2 prompt - nerd girlfriends

In all her years of being wined and dined by well-intentioned young men she tried so hard to love, Alex hoped she’d learned a thing or two about how to treat a lady.   
  
But when Maggie first came over to her apartment with pizza and beer, to make all her hopes come true and kiss her for what felt like the first time, Alex had blurted out that she wanted to take her on a date before she even realised that she’d never planned one in her life.   
  
Where the hell did lesbians go for dates anyway? She didn’t think she’d ever seen any at the movies, at a restaurant… Did they just go to gay places? Is that why she’d never noticed?  
  
The doubt must have shown on her face, because Maggie had smiled a little and tucked some of Alex’s hair behind her ear. “Danvers, you really don’t have to. I feel like I should take you out first. You know, to show you how the other half live,” she joked.   
  
“Pfft, thank you, but I’ve got this,” Alex chuckled, eyes flitting anywhere but into the too-warm intensity of Maggie’s. “I can plan a date. I’m the best at planning dates. I’m…I’m known for it.”  
  
But the next day, she’d shown up on her sister’s doorstep in a flurry of _God, Kara, what have I done? Maggie was right, what do I know about taking out girls? Should I bring flowers? Do lesbians even get girls flowers? And who pays? What do I wear?_   
  
They’d settled it all over potstickers, Kara actually letting Alex have some for a change as she tried to assure her that the dating etiquette was probably the same, that Maggie wouldn’t expect her to toss her money around and kiss the ground she walked on. Just something simple. Genuine. Something that taught her a bit about Alex.   
  
_You deserve some fun in your life_ , Kara had said. _Just treat her how you want to be treated and you’ll be fine_.   
  
She did bring Maggie flowers, in the end – not without an internal panic that it was just a straight guy thing, that it was too much for a first date. But Maggie had beamed when she saw her, and she’d worn a _skirt_ tonight, and Alex was the _reason_ she’d worn a skirt tonight, the realisation entirely unbelievable.  
  
“You gonna tell me where we’re going?” Maggie tried as they headed outside to Alex’s bike.  
  
“Yeah, right. It’s all in the suspense, Sawyer.”  
  
“If you say so, Danvers,” she chuckled, tugging on her leather jacket in a way that Alex was sure was the sexiest way to put _on_ clothes. “I suppose it’s worth the risk, to share a ride with such a beautiful girl.”   
  
As if that wasn’t enough, Alex felt Maggie hike up her skirt a little to sit behind her, and had to fight to keep her balance. It was entirely distracting, in the most deliciously dangerous way, to have Maggie literally wrapped around her, so close her perfume mixed with the pine of trees as they climbed the hills on the edge of the city, the bike’s headlamp their only light.   
  
“You’re not gonna dump my body out here, are you, Danvers?” Maggie shouted over the engine, arms tight around her waist. Alex just smirked, deciding it was more fun to pretend she never heard.   
  
At the top of the hill, an enormous old building sat on the edge cliff, looking over the sparkling city. Realising where they were, Maggie chuckled as she climbed off the bike and shook out her hair from her helmet.  
  
“Excellent choice,” she teased with a smirk. “ _Nerd_.”  
  


* * *

  
Years ago, in the first half of college, Alex used to work here at the National City Museum of Science. On the weekdays, she ran workshops for school groups where she’d show kids how to make baking soda volcanoes, how to pet a sloth, calculating how much they would weigh if they lived on other planets.   
  
But her favourite shifts were Thursday evenings, when she’d take tour groups up to the telescopes and show them her favourite planets. And on the first Thursday of the month, the centre ran late adults-only nights where, away from the usual running and screaming children, people could wander the museum with a glass of wine, dance to live music in the main hall, snuggle in the planetarium.   
  
The only thing Alex didn’t like about working those events was seeing so many couples out, not understanding the twinge in her chest seeing pretty girls holding their boyfriends’ hands, wishing she could ever be as happy. But whenever a cute NCU student would flirt with her, feigning interest in whatever animal she was wrangling that night, she found herself blushing, hands shaking too much to hold the poor thing with any stability, talking endlessly about their physiology to distract herself from the expectation in his smile.   
  
How different things were, now, to have Maggie distract her from all else. How even in the rainforest dome, surrounded by butterflies, hands outstretched, she was by far the most beautiful thing.    
  
“Oh my god, Alex, I got one!” she giggled, showing Alex the feather-light creature that had settled in her palm. “Hey there, gorgeous…”  
  
“He’s beautiful,” Alex agreed, their shoulders brushing as they watched it tilt its wings, happy in its new home.  
  
“It’s a boy?”  
  
“Yeah, you can tell from the colouring – gotta look sexy for the ladies. He’s also larger than the females of his species.”  
  
“Nerd,” Maggie teased. “He is pretty sexy. Hope he procreates.”  
  
Alex laughed as the butterfly fluttered away to a nearby tree. “Fly free, little dude. Go get laid.” Immediately she blushed at her words, realising what she’d said.  
  
Thankfully, Maggie just laughed along, giving her a nudge. “Come on, smartypants, let’s go down to the aquarium.” On the way, they were impossibly close, shoulders bumping, Alex hiding her hand in her pocket so it didn’t brush Maggie’s. But the pull was undeniable, like the tug of an approaching wave, and emboldened by Maggie’s jokes, Maggie’s smiles, she decided to be brave, letting her knuckles just barely graze Maggie’s from time to time.   
  
“God, I haven’t been here in years,” Maggie told her, glass of wine in her other hand as they passed walls of fish, dolphins, sharks. “We had nothing like this back home.”  
  
“What did you have in Nebraska?”  
  
“Horses. About the only thing I miss,” Maggie replied, and when she smiled, it was almost wistful. “It was sweet of you to bring me here. Thank you.”  
  
“Anytime. It’s been ages for me too. I loved working in this section. We used to have to get in in the pool with the manatees to help the vets do their health checks, but they always just wanted to play. They’re like big sea puppies.”  
  
Maggie grinned. “I can totally imagine baby nerd Alex losing her mind, thinking she had the best job in the world.”  
  
They settled on a bench in the snow exhibit, a chilled enclosure with penguins on the other side of a small barricade. “You cold?” Alex asked, noticing Maggie shiver a little.  
  
“I’m OK.”  
  
“No you’re not,” Alex chuckled, draping her own jacket around Maggie’s shoulders.  
  
“Alex, you don’t hav-”  
  
“Yes I do. Had to learn something from the guys I dated, after all,” she joked. The jacket was too big on Maggie, and Alex restrained herself from teasing her tiny date.   
  
Maggie had to admit, it was pretty smooth, and she had to turn her face to the penguins to hide her blush. “Looks like we’re not the only ones on a date,” she said, noticing that they were all in pairs, building nests.   
  
“You know when a penguin likes someone, he gives her a pebble? If the girl accepts it then they use it to build a nest together.”  
  
Maggie chuckled. “So heteronormative. Must be sad to be a gay penguin, all alone and pebble-less.”  
  
“There used to be a gay couple in a New York zoo. The staff gave them abandoned eggs to raise.”  
  
“That’s so cute.” Maggie nudged her a little, almost conspiratorially. “You think any of these ones are gay?”  
  
“So gay,” Alex laughed.   
  
“If not, we could always recruit them to the dark side.”  
  
On the other side of the barrier, one penguin followed another down a slide and into the water.   
  
“I remember the first time we visited National City from Midvale,” Alex said, “we brought Kara here. I don’t know if I told you, but she’s adopted, and we’d just got her. She was always so fascinated as a kid by how the world worked, all the animals. In Midvale, turtles were her favourite, but here… She’d never seen a penguin or a snake or a platypus. Everything was new. It was like her brain exploded. I was… I was jealous. But it was nice too, being able to show her, you know?”  
  
“You guys sound really close.”   
  
“We are.”   
  
Noticing Alex starting to tremble, Maggie handed her back her jacket. “We should go somewhere warmer before you freeze. I’d like to return the favour after tonight and I’d prefer my date to be alive.”  
  
Alex almost stammered. “You would?”  
  
Grinning cheekily, Maggie used her foot to nudge a pebble into Alex’s shoe. “That answer your question?”  
  
Alex raised her eyebrows. “That was such a poor effort. You’d have zero game in the penguin world.”  
  
“What! Come on.”  
  
“You have to at least find a nice one! Do you know how long penguins search for the right -”  
  
“Eugh fine, so high maintenance,” Maggie groaned, leaning over to inspect the ground before finding a rounder, smoother pebble and handing it to Alex with exaggerated care. “M’lady.”  
  
“Oh why thank you, nerd,” she teased, but truly Alex was touched by the gesture. They caught eyes for a moment, and Alex knew enough about dating to understand that this was an opportunity. Anticipation hung in the air between them, a restrained sparkle Alex couldn’t quite decipher in Maggie’s eyes. But nerves took her, and Alex pocketed the stone in her jacket.   
  
Sensing her hesitation, Maggie stood up and offered Alex her hand.   
  
The sensation was entirely overwhelming. As they continued through the water animals section, past otters and seals, Alex’s brain overloaded at the soft warmth of Maggie’s hand in hers, the tenderness of her touch, the fact that she was holding a woman’s hand at all, and she couldn’t bring herself to lift her eyes from the floor in case people were staring, and god this felt like nothing she’d ever felt before but what if it was a mistake, what if it was wrong, what if it wasn’t safe –  
  
“Alex? You still with me?”  
  
“What?” Alex asked, blinking away tears as fast as she could.   
  
Maggie stopped them near the touch pool, her hand out of Alex’s now, gently cradling her elbow. “I lost you for a sec there. You OK?”  
  
“Yeah, I…” Alex started to say, but her face burned, and her eyes stung. “I’m just being stupid, I -”  
  
“No, Alex - I’m sorry. If that was too much, we don’t have to.”  
  
Alex let a shaky breath out of her chest, watching the jellyfish bob past her in the next window. “I want to,” she said slowly. “I just… I’ve never properly held a girl’s hand before. I didn’t expect it to feel so…”  
  
Terrifying. Strange. Beautiful.  
  
“Different?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Alex, that’s OK. You’ve been literally trained not to do this you’re whole life. It’s gonna take a little getting used to.”  
  
Smiling softly, shyly, Alex let her eyes flit to Maggie’s just for a second, before slipping her hand back into hers, this time interlocking their fingers. Squeezing tight. “I could get used to this.”   
  
“Me too,” Maggie replied, squeezing a little in return.   
  
Once Alex took those first few steps holding Maggie’s hand, and hardly anyone was noticing, she started to feel less like the roof was about to cave in on her head and more like the room didn’t even matter at all. Soon enough they were both laughing again, Alex holding Maggie close as they approached a rockpool full of crabs (“They’re like giant spiders of the sea, Danvers, I can’t deal”), Maggie later soothing her while she held a snake for the first time in years, figuring tonight was a night for facing fears.   
  
Eventually, they settled with their wine glasses on a bean bag in the planetarium, while a lone guitarist was playing acoustic covers in the corner. Alex could hardly concentrate on the projections above her, the supernovae on the ceiling, because Maggie was tracing golden ratio swirls over the inside of her wrist, and all she could do was let her eyes flutter shut and sigh out a breath. She felt the trace of her everywhere, somehow both gentle and powerful, and when she opened her eyes, Maggie was smiling gently, eyes bright.  
  
“You’re really beautiful, you know that?”  
  
Alex shifted a little to face her, letting Maggie trace a single finger over her hairline. “So are you.”  
  
When they finally kissed, Alex felt every place their bodies touched, and every place they didn’t. Maggie seemed to warm her from the inside out, to fill all of her senses, and they naturally edged closer together, forgetting the sky above them, and before long, Alex was breathless, needing to pull away.   
  
“You OK?”  
  
Alex nodded, releasing something between a sigh and a laugh, still holding the woman’s face in her hands. “Yeah just… It’s never been like this. I feel so much… I didn’t know… God, this is what it was supposed to feel like the whole time?”  
  
Maggie nodded, smiling against her lips, and when she kissed Alex again, it felt like a welcome home.   
  
They kissed long, and slow, and tender, winding fingers through hair, gently tugging at collars. Like a revelation, Alex finally understood why girls wore skirts. Maggie’s thigh slid against hers, perhaps accidentally, but the warmth of her skin, the sheer expanse of it, was dizzying, destabilising.   
  
Alex knew then that if she kissed her neck, Maggie would arch for her. If she slid her hand up her thigh, toyed with the edge of that skirt, she would tremble. Wherever Alex went, Maggie would follow. It was a chain reaction as true as any physics.   
  
God, it would be easy, so easy, to keep going.   
  
But Maggie smiled against her mouth, peppered kisses along her jaw. “We shouldn’t get carried away,” she murmured. Alex nodded, but in truth she barely heard her, drunk on a heady sort of pleasure she’d never felt, and could only compare to hunger.   
  
After that, it was like they’d woken something they couldn’t put back to sleep. Alex took Maggie by the hand through every hallway, pulling her close to share coy kisses against the wall of the shark tunnel, against the railing in the rooftop garden. At the close of the night, they joined the other couples slow-dancing under the whale skeleton in the main hall, and kissed like it was a mistletoe of bones, and Alex felt no shame, no fear.   
  
Sharing liquid nitrogen ice cream on the balcony over the city, they talked about home, about each other, seeking out all the things they had to learn before walking back to the bike, high on sugar and kisses.   
  
“OK, I’ve got another one. You’re so hot you denature my proteins.”  
  
Maggie cringed through her laugh. “That was worse.”  
  
“Hey babygirl,” Alex teased. “Are you a charged atom? Because I’ve got my ion you.”  
  
“Enough, seriously.”  
  
“If you were a concen-”  
  
“You have to stop now.”  
  
Alex grinned, tugged her to a halt. “Make me,” she told her, her voice low with the challenge.  
  
Never one to back down, Maggie pulled her close, kissed her soft and sweet, and the head rush came on so strong that Alex had to pull away.  
  
“Wow.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Alex smirked. “We really do have good chemistry.”  
  
“ _Oh my God, Danvers_.”  
  
Alex’s laughter hit her in one bright rush. Because for all those years, she thought she’d never have this. All those years kissing boys, then men, feeling nothing but chemiluminescent reactions – the kind that produced light but not heat.   
  
Maggie felt like the opposite. All heat, but no light, no light, no light.  
  
But that was OK. Because she’d hold Alex’s hand through the dark.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm on tumblr @jiemba if you want to stop by : )


End file.
